Leaders of the School
'' Leaders of the School ''is the twentieth book in the Middle School Experience series. It chronicles the girls' first few weeks of eighth grade. It mainly focuses on a new boy who Robbie feels threatened by due to him attracting the attention of Arabella, Daphne trying to earn better grades in math, and Alex worried that her younger sister is not adjusting to middle school well. The girls are in eighth grade, and therefore, the leaders of Lakewood Middle School! Unfortunately, even the leaders have problems. Alex is worried that her younger sister isn’t adjusting well to middle school, Daphne finds it hard to do well in math with a grumpy teacher, and Arabella feels conflicted about developing a crush on a boy while still in a relationship with Robbie. Will the girls make it through eighth grade problem-free? Summary The story begins in late summer when Alex, Katelyn, and Carrie are at Target shopping for new school clothes. Alex finds a couple of t-shirts that she likes, but Katelyn struggles to find the perfect first day outfit. Eventually, Katelyn finds a dress paired with a denim jacket, and the family walks to the cashier to pay for their clothes. As Carrie pays for the clothes, Katelyn and Alex gush to each other about the upcoming school year and being able to attend the same school due to Katelyn beginning her sixth grade year at Lakewood. Alex is happy that she and her sister will be attending Lakewood together and hopes that Katelyn avoids the negative experiences that she had gone through during her sixth grade year. On Sunday night, Daphne has a family dinner with her parents and her brothers. Her father is praising Steven for starting college and her siblings for attending school. Daphne brings up the goals that she wants to accomplish towards the drama club, but she is shut down when her parents say that they want her to take her academics more seriously this year. Hector states to Daphne and Brennon that they must make at least a B average in all of their classes; failure to would result in them being disallowed to attend their extracurricular activities. Daphne is not happy with this rule because she knows that it will negatively affect her, but she hopes that she has a decent math teacher this year so she will have a good chance of passing the class. On the first day of school, Alex and Katelyn eat breakfast with her parents, but Alex notices that Katelyn is barely eating. Katelyn confesses that she is excited but nervous about starting middle school, and Alex reassures her that everything will be fine. After breakfast, the sisters leave their house and walk to the bus stop, where they meet up with Ellie and Leah. On the bus, Ellie and Leah talk to Katelyn about their sixth grade experiences, which both excites and terrifies her. When they arrive at Lakewood, they soak back into the school atmosphere and Alex and her friends remark that the sixth graders look really young this year. An announcement comes onto the intercom instructing all the sixth graders to report to the auditorium for the sixth grade assembly, and Alex and her friends lead Katelyn to the auditorium. On the way, they have a run-in with the Popular Sensations. Clarissa and Marylin are predictably rude to Alex, but when they notice Katelyn, they taunt her for being a Sanders. When Katelyn snaps back at them, Clarissa threatens her before she and her clique walk away. Alex and her friends finally arrive at the auditorium to drop off Katelyn. Alex wishes Katelyn good luck on her first day. Arabella's first class of the day is gym class, which she has mixed feelings about, but she warmns up to the idea when she learns that Maryann and Robbie are in the class with her. When class begins, the students meet the gym teachers and each student gets assigned to one of the coaches; Arabella, Maryann, and Robbie all end up in Coach Bevan's class. Coach Bevan's class goes to a classroom, where the coach introduces herself and explains the class objectives. In the middle of the speech, a boy arrives to the class late and admits that he had gone to the wrong coach's classroom. He decides to sit with Arabella and her friends. Arabella, Maryann, and Robbie introduce themselves to Connor, and learn that he is a new student from New Jersey. As Arabella gets to know him, she thinks he is interesting and cute. Daphne ends up having math as her second period class, which she is not pleased about, but she becomes more optimistic when she sees that Ellie, who is good at math, is one of her classmates. Unfortunately, a bland and boring man named James Bergman introduces himself as the teacher and crushes Daphne's optimistic attitude about the class. Mr. Bergman mentions that he will email the students' parents if they fall below an eighty-five average in his class, which Daphne is worried about. For the rest of the period, Mr, Bergman hands out a test to see how well his students know about the upcoming concepts he will be teaching. Daphne has difficulty working on the test and ends up not completing it before Mr. Bergman snatches it up at the end of class. After class, Daphne rants to Ellie about Mr. Bergman and expresses her worries about passing math. Ellie suggests that Daphne find a tutor, but Daphne is reluctant to because she doesn't want her parents to know that she is already having trouble in math. So far, Alex is having a great first day of school. At lunch, she meets up with her friends and catches up with them. During lunch, Arabella mentions that she is a little annoyed that her brother Kyle is now attending Lakewood as a sixth grader, and that makes Alex think about Katelyn and how she is holding up at Lakewood. Katelyn arrives at her lunch table and asks to sit with Alex and her friends. Alex allows her to, but finds it weird that Katelyn is not sitting with her friends. Chloe announces that there are a lot of events for the eighth graders, including an eighth grade social and a school-wide cookout. The Popular Sensations walk by Alex's table, and when they notice Katelyn sitting there, they taunt both of the Sanders sisters. Katelyn tells Clarissa off, which surprises everyone. Alex is glad that Katelyn is able to stand up to the Popular Sensations. The next day in gym class, Coach Bevan's class plays a game of capture-the-football against Coach Johnson's class. Arabella notices that Connor is a good athlete and after the game, she flirts with him a little. However, Robbie is annoyed by this. Arabella notices that Robbie had been pretty quiet during class, but doesn't think much of it. After they change back into their school clothes, Arabella and Maryann meet up with Connor and they walk to their next classes together. Arabella sees Robbie in the hallways and waves at him, but Robbie blows her off. Though Arabella is annoyed by Robbie's behavior, she can't stop thinking about Connor and realizes that she has a crush on him. In math class, Mr. Bergman writes notes down on the board, but Daphne has trouble keeping up with his teaching. Mr. Bergman asks some of his students to solve problems that he had written on the board, and to her dismay, Daphne is one of those students. Daphne answers her assigned problem wrong, and Mr. Bergman accuses her of not paying attention. During class, Mr. Bergman passes back the tests from yesterday; Ellie passes but Daphne fails it. Daphne accidentally blurts out a rude comment, and Mr. Bergman threatens her with detention. On Thursday night, Daphne listens to her father praise her brothers about their school years. Steven is excited to go to college, and Brennon is excited about the upcoming lacrosse season. Her brothers begin talking about their math classes, and Daphne becomes jealous that they are doing fine while she is struggling. When Barbara and Hector ask Daphne how her classes are going, Daphne lies and says that she is doing well in every class, including math; little do they know that she is failing the class and had hacked into her parents' email accounts and deleted messages from Mr. Bergman explaining how Daphne was failing. Her parents are proud of her and allow her to go to the eighth grade social. Daphne feels guilty about lying, but is afraid to tell her parents the truth. On the night of the social, Arabella gets picked up by Gail, and they arrive at Lakewood to meet the rest of their friends. Arabella hopes that she and Robbie can have a good time at the dance after his weird behavior towards her during the week. At the dance, she smiles at Robbie, but he seems to be acting cold towards her. Arabella and her friends make their way to the dancefloor. Arabella decides to walk up to Robbie and ask him to dance, but before she makes her way towards them, Connor walks up to her and asks her to dance, and Arabella says yes. They dance to a few fast songs, and dance to one slow song. While they dance, Connor thanks Arabella for helping him adjust to Lakewood before telling her that he has a crush on her. Arabella panics because she didn't expect Connor to like her. To make matters worse, she sees Robbie watching them. After she finishes dancing with Connor, she walks around the gym to search for Robbie, but eventually realizes that he had left the dance. Defeated, Arabella decides to leave, too. The following week, Barbara and Hector finds out about Daphne's scheme and realize that she had been lying to them about her math grades. They ban her from attending drama club meetings and prohibit her from attending the upcoming school cookout. Daphne falls into a depression and becomes unmotivated about school. She is so unmotivated that she pretends to be ill so she can get out of math class. During lunch, Ellie confronts Daphne after noticing that she hadn't showed up to class, and Daphne confesses to Ellie about the situation with her parents. Ellie suggests that Daphne confess to her parents about her difficulty in math class, but Daphne is reluctant to. Nevertheless, she tries anyway. After dinner that evening, Daphne apologizes to her parents for her scheme and admits her worries for her math grades. Barbara and Hector agree that they overreacted and give advice and offer help to her. They allow her to attend drama club meetings again, but she is still grounded from going to the cookout. Arabella begins avoiding Connor after what had happened at the social, and Robbie begins avoiding Arabella for the same reasons. At the cookout, Freddy and Robbie hang out with the girls, but Robbie acts strangely around Arabella; he eventually decides to walk away to talk to some people from the science club. When Arabella goes to the buffet table to find him, she sees him with a girl from their P.E. class, and is hurt and upset. Connor walks up to her and asks her if she is avoiding him, and Arabella snaps at him and tells her to leave her alone before walking away. During the cookout, Katelyn walks up to Alex and her friends' blanket, which annoys Alex because she feels like Katelyn has been acting like a tag-along lately. Katelyn demands that Alex call their mom and asks to pick them up, but when Alex refuses, Katelyn grows annoyed with her. Alex sees Katelyn's best friends standing by the buffet table and asks why she isn't hanging out with them, but Katelyn gets upset and walks away. Unfortunately, the sisters run into the Popular Sensations. Marylin makes insulting comments about Katelyn, and Alex defends her sister by getting into a shoving match with Marylin. A teacher breaks up the fight. Alex turns to Katelyn, and is surprised to see that she had run off. On Monday, Ellie tells Daphne that she didn't miss much at the cookout, so Daphne is not upset about missing it. During the weekend, Daphne is surprised to see that her family is supportive of her and help her understand Mr. Bergman's lessons better. In class, Daphne works diligently and finds that the class is not that bad as long as she has supportive family and friends and has a positive attitude. At lunchtime, Arabella ends up standing in the lunchline between Robbie and Connor. Her friends notice that Robbie is hanging around Lillian, and Arabella explains the situation to them. Jessie tells her that Robbie had told her that he had wanted to dance with her at the social, but he didn't have the courage; when he finally mustered up the courage, he saw her dancing with Connor. Her friends advise her to try to apologize to Robbie and Connor, but Arabella is afraid to. Gail suggests that Arabella send letters to the two of them, and Arabella decides to take her advice. The next morning, Alex tries to talk to Katelyn about her sullen attitude, but Katelyn is not interested in speaking to her. Before homeroom, Alex spots Katelyn's three best friends hanging out and tells her sister to hang out with them, but Katelyn refuses. Alex snaps and tells Katelyn that she is becoming an annoying tag-along and calls the younger girls to come over, but is surprised when they act coldly towards both her and Katelyn. Katelyn snaps at Alex and runs to the nearest bathroom to lock herself in a stall. Alex follows her into the bathroom and asks for an explanation. Katelyn confesses that her "friends" had been acting weird and cliquey towards her since the first day of school before dumping her a few days later, explaining that they want to be popular and they don't want to hang out with a Sanders sister. She admits that her middle school experience has not been going well as a result. Having been in a similar situation, Alex sympathizes with Katelyn and tells her that she is better off with new friends. She admits that Katelyn's behavior was annoying, but offers to help her out with anything involving middle school. The girls decide to hang out with Alex's friends for the rest of the morning before homeroom starts. Before gym class, Arabella writes letters to Connor and Robbie apologizing to them about her behavior. After a game of kickball, Arabella approaches Connor. She admits that she had freaked out when he confessed his feelings for her at the social, and they agree to be friends. In the hallways, she attempts to slide Robbie's note in his locker, but he sees her. At first, Robbie is cold towards her, but he eventually admits that he was jealous of Arabella's flirty behavior towards Connor. He reassures her that he is not interested in Lillian, and they make up. Daphne doesn't become the best student in Mr. Bergman's class, but she continues to work hard to obtain good grades. Alex continues guiding Katelyn through middle school and encourages her to become friends with her classmates. Robbie and Connor rekindle their friendship after talking about the situation with Arabella. The girls' eighth grade year didn't start out perfect, but they are content over everything that they had gone through and hope for more positive experiences in the coming months. Characters (in order of appearance) * Alex Sanders * Katelyn Sanders * Carrie Sanders * Hector Carson * Steven Carson * Daphne Carson * Barbara Carson * Brennon Carson * Jerry Sanders * Ellie Jackson * Leah Harrison * Clarissa Simpson * Gabby Evans * Marylin Roberts * Arabella Wilson * Maryann Chang * Robbie James * Coach Johnson * Coach Bevan * Connor Endrissi * James Bergman * Chloe Winters * Regina Daniels * Jessie Sanchez * Gail Edwards * Kyle Wilson * Irene Wilson * Pete Edwards * Freddy Hamilton * Lillian Dupree Trivia *This book was rewritten; the first edition was in 2008. Final edition was written in December 2016. Category:Stories